For nearly 20 years, a complicated web of leftist non-profit groups has quietly, but effectively influenced presidential elections, federal judicial nominations, and issues ranging from environmental extremism, to abortion and criminal justice reform. The dark-money network’s “mothership,” as The Atlantic called it, is Arabella Advisors. In 2021, The Atlantic called Arabella’s network “the massive progressive dark-money group you’ve never heard of,” adding, “Democrats have quietly pulled ahead of Republicans in untraceable political spending. One group helped make it happen.”
The man most responsible for shining a light on the Arabella Advisors Network is Scott Walter, President of the Capital Research Center. In Apri,Walter published Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America.
In a recent podcast interview on the Pro America Report, Walter said the two biggest factors that concern him about the Arabella Advisors network are their size, noting that every election cycle they spend “billions,” and their anonymity. “Everyone knows about George Soros. They've heard of Mark Zuckerberg. Most people have not heard of Arabella and they need to know Arabella,” Walter said.
Walter said he “stumbled upon” the network in 2018 when leftist groups were trying to defeat Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. “A new group called Demand Justice was heavily involved in that fight,” he explained. “And as we dug into Demand Justice, we discovered it didn't really exist. It was just a fiscally sponsored project of something called the 1630 Fund.” He said that group had picked up a “tiny bit of press coverage because it was becoming such a big 501(c)(4) political nonprofit.”
Walter was among the first outsiders to undercover the complex web connecting about a half-dozen different political nonprofits, including the 1630 Fund, to Arabella Advisors, which he describes as a for-profit “Beltway Bandit.”
“The simplest way to put it is Arabella Advisors is a for-profit consulting firm that created about a half-dozen nonprofits and [they] have created more than 500 pop-up groups, which are what the public sees, whether it's Demand Justice, calling for court packing or attacking a judicial nominee like Brett Kavanaugh or Floridians or a Fair Shake.”
In a recent interview with the Daily Signal, Walter said Arabella is behind much of the activism and policy changes in Title IX to make it easier for biological males to compete in girls’ scholastic sports.
He notes that an Arabella-sponsored group funded by billionaire financier George Soros helped formulate the Biden administration’s recent change in Title IX policy to make it easier for biological males to compete in girls’ scholastic sports.
“That was plotted through a highly secretive group in the Arabella network, funded entirely with Soros money,” Walter said. “Governing for Impact, which they started in 2019, two years before the Biden administration was even sworn in. And they worked with Harvard Law School folks to do very sophisticated legal strategy memos of how to overturn dozens of regulations in the federal government, the most famous being Title IX.
“What differentiates Arabella from other major donors on the Left is the level of secrecy, Walter says. The network is more secretive than most nonprofits financed by Soros and his family, he says.
“We have tracked the institutional donors, and we can tell you that for almost all of the Arabella nonprofits, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, which provides donor-advised funds to wealthy people, is the largest,” Walter said. He added, “Other really big donors to the Arabella network have [included Microsoft co-founder] Bill Gates. He is one of the largest, mostly through his foundation. [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg has given tens of millions, mostly for criminal justice reform—quote unquote—[that results in] letting criminals back on the streets.”
Last month, Walter told Newsmax TV the Arabella network is a tool of the ultrawealthy elites to consolidate power.
Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, and Missouri Rep. Jason Smith joined "Rob Schmitt Tonight" to discuss the massive dark money campaigns being waged by the ultrawealthy.@RepJasonSmith @SchmittNYC pic.twitter.com/BK6ajfLrWb— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) May 7, 2024
RNLA will host Walter for a webinar on his book, Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America, this Friday, June 21, at 2:00 p.m. ET. Click here to register.